The greatest warrior in all of the Seven Kingdoms… is a girl with yellow eyes.

Kira’s the only female in the king’s army, and the prince’s bodyguard. She’s a demon slayer and an outcast, hated by nearly everyone in her home city of Hansong. And, she’s their only hope…

Murdered kings and discovered traitors point to a demon invasion, sending Kira on the run with the young prince. He may be the savior predicted in the Dragon King Prophecy, but the missing treasure of myth may be the true key. With only the guidance of the cryptic prophecy, Kira must battle demon soldiers, evil shaman, and the Demon Lord himself to find what was once lost and raise a prince into a king.

Intrigue and mystery, ancient lore and action-packed fantasy come together in this heart-stopping first book in a trilogy.

Review:A friend of mine who was book blogging about the time this book was announced it was being said I needed to read this book because there was a lot of positive feedback behind it. So when it was released I downloaded it onto my Barnes and Noble Nook Tablet. Then I went about my merry way for a couple of days. I started reading this book yesterday when I got home from work and while I really wanted to like it, it was only ‘meh’ for me.

Kira is the only female in her king’s army and the prince’s bodyguard. She also has another thing going for her, she can sense demons. Which in the long run was quite helpful but it wasn’t really a focus when “stuff” hit the fan. I would have liked to see the author spend a little more time on this but it just didn’t happen.

When “stuff” hit the fan and things should have been memorable, I’ve got nothing. If you read the blurb the last sentence says “Intrigue and mystery, ancient lore and action-packed fantasy come together in this heart-stopping first book in a trilogy.” Well to be honest, I feel that there was a TON of ancient lore, a TON of action but the rest Prophecy came up short on.

I just didn’t connect with really any of the characters either. Kira for me was too wishy washy for me. Once second she’s on the highest high the next she’s on the lowest low and it started to drive me banana’s. I did like the prince though. He gets a pretty big burden placed on his tiny 12 year old shoulders. He could have run away with his tail between his legs but he stepped up to the plate big time. There were several characters that I felt were just “filler material,” I didn’t really understand why they were there at all.

I will give the author some major props for writing Prophecy in a “real” way. There is war in this book and people die. Many families are destroyed. There is a bunch of political stuff too that I’m not even going to try to process right now. It’s not all “unicorns that poop sunshine” in Prophecy. Since this is a debut for this author I’m not going to quit this series yet. For all the negatives I found with this book it was a page turner and I finished it in about a grand total of 3.5 hours. To quote Brokeback Mountain…”I can’t quit you!”

Why be the sheep, when you can be the wolf?
Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where the sisters still serve the gods of old. Here she learns that the god of Death Himself has blessed her with dangerous gifts—and a violent destiny. If she chooses to stay at the convent, she will be trained as an assassin and serve as a handmaiden to Death. To claim her new life, she must destroy the lives of others.

Ismae’s most important assignment takes her straight into the high court of Brittany—where she finds herself woefully under prepared—not only for the deadly games of intrigue and treason, but for the impossible choices she must make. For how can she deliver Death’s vengeance upon a target who, against her will, has stolen her heart?

Review:

This book had been sitting on my TBR bookcase since I bought it on Release Day last year. Why you ask has it been sitting there so long? Well I have a TON of books that I’ve bought as a result of following book blogs for a LONG time. I didn’t really have any expectations when I picked up Grave Mercy. All I really new about the book was that it was about the handmaiden’s to Death.

Our heroine, Ismae is one of Death’s daughters and narrowly escapes the brutality that is her bogus arranged marriage when she is helped to reach the convent of St. Mortain. At the convent the occupants serve the god of Death himself. Each person has been blessed with a gift, a very dangerous gift. Ismae is very good at serving her God but then when Ismae is asked to participate in a very important assignment that will take her into the heart of the high court of Brittany she finds herself woefully unprepared for all the things that take place. Or the man that eventually steals her heart and makes her believe again.

Our hero, Duval, is the Duchess’ half brother and is doing everything in his power to keep his sister safe but also see that she is crowned. At first I wasn’t sure if I was going to like Duval. He had this swagger about him that I was lukewarm on in the beginning but as the plot thickened I grew to enjoy Duval very much. Plus, as an added bonus, he’s attracted to Ismae even though he really doesn’t want to be.

There are so many things that happen in this book that had me turning pages even when I should have been doing other things like eating or getting enough sleep for work. It was a freaking roller coaster that I just could not put down. Plus, I really enjoyed almost all of the secondary characters with the exception of 1 or 2. I can hardly wait to dig into the second book, I thought that Ms. LaFevers did an excellent job building up the story so that it will flow easily into Dark Triumph.